Washington United States President
Barack Obama
says airstrikes and a humanitarian campaign in northern Iraq will endure for months, as Australia, France and Britain announced they would join the aid mission.

The US military launched a series of targeted air attacks against rampaging ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) terrorists over the weekend, including four airstrikes on Sunday.

In the first strike, “a mix of US fighters and remotely piloted aircraft struck one of two ISIS armoured personnel carriers firing on Yazidi civilians near Sinjar", US Central Command said.

After following the remaining vehicle, a second pair of strikes, about 20 minutes later, hit two more armoured personnel carriers and an armed truck. The fourth struck another armoured personnel carrier also in the Sinjar area.

US cargo aircraft, escorted by F/A-18s fighter jets, dropped more than 36,000 meals and drinking water to an estimated 40,000 Yazidi refugees trapped on a mountain where they had fled from the ISIS terrorists.

Speaking at the White House almost three years after withdrawing all US troops from Iraq, Mr Obama called for international support to fix the country as he prepared a war-wary American public for a sustained air intervention.

“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks," Mr Obama said. “This is going to be a long-term project."

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He said the air campaign could be extended to protect key infrastructure, such as Iraq’s largest dam at Mosul, captured by ISIS, and to provide a safe corridor for the ethnic and religious minority Yazidis stuck on Mount Sinjar.

Over the weekend, Mr Obama ­lobbied foreign leaders for support, including British Prime Minister
David Cameron
, who agreed to provide aid but ruled out supplying any fighting forces.

US Defence Secretary
Chuck Hagel
and Secretary of State
John Kerry
will arrive in Sydney on Monday for long-scheduled talks on defence co-operation with Defence Minister
David Johnston
and Foreign Affairs Minister
Julie Bishop
.

Wall Street unconcerned

Wall Street investors appear unperturbed about the US resuming airstrikes in northern Iraq on Friday, despite steep share price falls earlier in Asian and European markets.

Rather than worrying about Iraq, US investors took heart from Russia announcing it was pulling back troops from the Ukraine border, signalling a de-escalation of a geopolitical risk that had weighed on stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday posted its biggest one-day gain in five months, rising 1.13 per cent.

The relief rally led some traders to suggest the recent stock sell-off, culminating in a 4 per cent decline in US share indexes from their peak in recent weeks, may be over.

“The markets are up significantly from their lows in 2009, and now you’re getting an introduction of geopolitical risks which are an excuse for markets to correct a little and take a breather," Mr Pride said. “No one really knows what’s going to happen."

Despite heightened tension in the oil-rich Middle East, Brent crude oil fell 0.5 per cent to $US105 a barrel. Most of Iraq’s oil is in the country’s south, hundreds of kilometres from the fighting.

US fighter jets and drones have conducted at least three rounds of multiple bombings on ISIS militias and armoured vehicles since Friday, to protect northern areas controlled by Kurds and inhabited by other minorities.

The US Department of Defence said the strikes “successfully destroyed arms and equipment" that ISIS could have used against residents of the city of Erbil. “Meanwhile, Kurdish forces on the ground continue to defend the city, and the United States and the Iraqi government have stepped up our military assistance to Kurdish forces as they wage their fight," a spokesman said.

Mr Obama, speaking before taking a two-week beach and golfing holiday, reiterated there would be no US “boots on the ground" to fight ISIS, a violent Sunni-terrorist group taking over cities in northern and western Iraq.

He emphasised the need for Iraq to form a new, inclusive, government and replace divisive Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki
so a coalition could be built between the warring Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions. “We can help, we can advise, but we can’t do it for them," Mr Obama said. “And the US military cannot do it for them."

Washington divided

In Washington, there are divisions between some Republicans and Democrats about Mr Obama’s strategy in Iraq. Republican House Speaker
John Boehner
said “the president’s authorisation of airstrikes is appropriate but like many Americans I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region".

Mr Obama on Saturday gave a staunch defence of the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq in 2011 and the decision not to leave a residual force.

He said the US offered to retain forces to the “sovereign" Iraqi government, who declined the request and declined to provide legal immunity to US personnel.

“And on that basis, we left," Mr Obama said. “We had offered to leave additional troops."

David Barno, senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security and former commander of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, said the current US mission was justifiable on humanitarian grounds, but full of risks.

“It opens the door widely to a growing American role in a regional sectarian conflict pitting the militarily potent Sunni ISIS against their Kurdish rivals in northern Iraq and Shia adversaries who control the Baghdad government and the south," he said.

The original justification by the Obama administration on Thursday to resume airstrikes in Iraq was to protect US diplomats and military advisers in the northern city of Erbil in the Kurdistan region. Failure to act could also lead to genocide by ISIS-Sunni insurgents against religious and ethnic minorities, Mr Obama warned.

Britain announced it was sending two planes with humanitarian aid for the stranded Yazidis, including water and 500 solar lanterns that can be used to charge mobile phones.

“We can expect a continuing drumbeat of airdrop operations, working in co-ordination with the US and potentially with others as well," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

France declared it would support any plan called for by the United Nations Security Council.

“We have a responsibility," said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at Centre for American Progress and former assistant secretary of defence in the Reagan administration

“We created this mess by going into Iraq and breaking up the society."